Moti the puppy had never once sat still in his life.
Ravi loved him for it — the way he zoomed in circles, knocked over Nani's
water pot, chased his own tail until he fell over dizzy. But that
afternoon, sitting cross-legged and grumpy by the pond, Ravi was using
Moti as proof.
"See, Nani?" he said. "Some things just can't sit still. Moti can't. I
can't. My mind can't. It's hopeless."
Nani set down her brush. She did not argue. Instead she patted the ground
beside her and called the puppy. Moti came barrelling over and immediately
tried to bite her painting rag.
"You are half right," she said. "If nobody ever trains a puppy — if you
just let him run wild and never gently show him how — then yes, he will
never sit. That kind of puppy will never learn to be calm. Krishna told
Arjuna exactly that: for a person who never tries to gather himself in,
stillness really is out of reach."
Ravi looked glum. "So I'm right. Hopeless."
"I said you were *half* right." Nani held a small piece of jaggery in her
closed hand. "Moti," she said softly, and pressed his wriggling bottom
gently to the ground. "Sit." Moti popped right back up. She tried again.
And again. The fourth time he stayed down for a single heartbeat, and she
opened her hand and let him have the treat, praising him warmly.
They did it ten more times. By the end, when Nani said "Sit," Moti folded
himself down and looked up at her, tail thumping, waiting.
Ravi's mouth fell open. "He sat. He actually sat."
"Because someone who never gives up," Nani said, "worked at it the right
way, a little at a time, without ever shouting. That is the rest of what
Krishna told Arjuna. Yoga is hard for the one who never tries. But for the
one who keeps striving, gently, using the right method — it can be won."
She scratched Moti behind the ears. "This wild little thing just proved
it. Not by magic. By practice."
Ravi looked at the puppy sitting proudly in the grass, then down at his
own restless self. "So my mind," he said slowly, "is just a puppy I
haven't trained yet."
Nani laughed out loud. "Now," she said, "you are listening like Arjuna."
